


Home

by writetherest



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writetherest/pseuds/writetherest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He's realized, as the year has gone by, that his view of 'home' has changed.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the It's End Of The World As We Know It Ficathon prompt: you can take the girl out of Texas.

Eric has never been fond of tired old clichés or worn out sayings. With the exception of Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose, which is neither a tired old cliché or a worn out saying (at least in Dillon, Texas), he does his best to avoid them in his speech and his everyday life. But lately one of those old sayings keeps coming back to him.

_You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the girl._

They've been living in Philadelphia for just over a year now, and he can't pretend that it hasn't been a great one. Tami is thriving in her new job (and with her his and hers closets, to be honest), and watching Gracie see snow for the first time had been something of a miracle that he'll never forget, as long as he lives. The challenge of coaching a new team of rough players into champions has, in many ways, reinvigorated him. But he just can't bring himself to call Philadelphia home.

He's realized, as the year has gone by, that his view of 'home' has changed. Before, whenever anyone said the word home, it conjured up images of Dillon – the Alamo Freeze and Buddy's and Dillon High and Applebee's and even the Landing Strip. For the first few months after moving to Philadelphia, those same images had assaulted him whenever someone said home. But then, slowly but surely, the images changed. They were no longer of Dillon, but they weren't of Philadelphia either.

Instead, they were of a red headed woman, still wearing an East Dillon t-shirt to bed in a city 1,800 miles away. They were of her smiling as she handed him a cup of coffee in the morning, kissing his cheek, and then running out the door. They were of her in the stands, wearing knit hats with the Pemberton Pioneers logo on them, with her Braemore polo shirt still on as well. They were of her curled around Gracie as she read yet another story before bedtime.

_You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the girl._

Things are different here than they were in Dillon, there's no arguing that. The weather is just one of the many differences and the first time that he had to shovel snow higher than his knees, he had demanded that they were to be on the next plane back to Dillon. Even football is different here. Not the game, of course, the game truly is the same wherever you go, but _football_ l is different here. There's no real pressure here, not like there was in Dillon or at TMU to live up to his name, to take his team to State, and to lose his job if he didn't. It's not that the teams don't want it, of course they want it, but Pennsylvania football is not Texas football. The people here don't live for Friday night in the same way as in Texas. They don't spend all week talking about the coaches and the players and the match ups to come. They go to the games and they cheer on their teams and for those few hours on Friday night they live football. But the rest of the week has other worries. There are rivalries and pranks, but there aren't men with shot guns guarding his field against attacks, something for which he is honestly thankful. There are boosters but definitely no Buddy Garritys calling at all hours of the night or interrupting his family dinners. And although it's different, he finds he likes it just fine.

And every time he misses Texas, he just goes home, to their beautiful house with the his and hers closets and the swing set out back for Gracie, to his daughter and his wife, who is still the embodiment of Texas. Who still wears cowboy boots and aviator sunglasses with sundresses and hasn't lost her accent (at least not when she calls him 'honey' or 'sugar'). Who makes the best barbeque and pecan pie in all of Philadelphia. Who still believes in him just as much as she did the day she married him. And then he doesn't miss it any more. Because in this instance, the saying is true.

_You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the girl._  



End file.
